History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 171

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Mr. Kelley is one of Bluefield's most popular citizens. He has been treasurer of the Elks Ledge since 1899, was president in 1920 of the Bluefield Country Club, and for several years was a member of the City Council. He is affiliated with the Knights ef Columbus and he and his family are members of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

In 1899 he married Miss Virginia Baldwin, daughter of Capt. D. B. Baldwin. They have three children: Helen Virginia, wife of C. L. Stacy, of Bluefield; William D., of Lexington, Virginia, where he is attending school; and P. J., Jr.

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THOMAS HARLOWE SCOTT is a highly educated and thor- oughly efficient lawyer, with a good practice established at Bluefield, where he has been located for the past eight or nine years.

Mr. Scott was born at Fire Creek in Fayette County, West Virginia, January 6, 1883, and still has the best years of his life before him. His parents were Charles Henry Franklin and Barbara (Bilbie) Scott, natives of Virginia. His father for many years was foreman of the coke yards of the Caswell Creek Coal and Coke Company.

Thomas Harlowe Scott had an early environment con- veniently removed from poverty as well as from luxury, and as a youth he learned the value of thrift and work and most of his education above the common schools he acquired through his own efforts and earnings. He graduated from the Bramwell High School of West Virginia in 1897, then attended the Concord Normal at Athens, West Virginia, securing his diploma in music in 1899 and graduating in the academic course in 1900. For about a year following he was assistant bookkeeper for the Lick Branch Collieries of the Norfolk Coal and Coke Company, now part of the Pocahontas Fuel Company. In the fall of 1901 he left this employment to enter the University of Virginia at Charlotteville, where he spent two years in his preparatory conrse and in 1904 entered the University of Michigan, where he continued his law studies until graduating LL. B. in 1907. Mr. Scott was admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-four, and for five years engaged in practice at Pinevitle, Wyoming County, West Virginia. He was asso- ciated with James H. Gilmore and was also United States commissioner, and in that capacity had some very interest- ing cases before hini.

In the fall of 1913 Mr. Scott located at Bluefield, where he has given his time to a general practice. He is a mem- her of the County Bar Association, is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and is chairman of the Judiciary Com- mittee of the Grand Lodge of the state. He and Mrs. Scott are active in church work, he as a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Sonth, and Mrs. Scott as a Presbyterian.

In his professional career Mr. Scott has the invaluable aid and inspiration of Mrs. Scott, who spends much of her time with him in the office, and is a very practical assistant to a progressive lawyer. Mrs. Seott is a graduate also of the State Normal School at Athens, and has taught in the public schools of the state. Mr. Scott married at Charleston, West Virginia, October 9, 1918, Mrs. Roberta Higginbotham, formerly Miss Roberta Kesler, of Lowell, West Virginia, daughter of H. F. and Ella (Lively) Kesler, natives of Virginia. Her father was a farmer, took a very active part in public affairs, and for over twenty-five years was engaged in educational work and at one time was county superin- tendent of schools in Summers County, West Virginia. Mrs. Scott represents a prominent family on her mother's side. She is descended from Cottrell Lively, who was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. Col. Wilson Lively, son of Cottrell, was a member of the State Senate of Virginia during the Civil war and dropped dead of heart failure at Richmond when he heard of Lee's surrender. Mr. Frank Lively is now one of the justices of the Supreme Court of West Virginia.

JAMES SANSOME LAKIN, president of the state board of control, was born at Moundsville, West Virginia, the son of Rev. Calvin H. and Catherine Finney Lakin. He is a direct descendant of Abraham Lakin (born 1713, died 1796), who received from King George of England title deeds for a traet of land in Frederick County, Maryland, which has passed from father to son through many genera- tions and is still in the Lakin name, being now the bome- stead of William Gerry Lakin.

Rev. Calvin Harrison Lakin, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born near Freeport, Ohio, on June 29, 1838, and married Catherine Finney, of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, on March 26, 1863. He retired after a half century of honorable and active service as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the West Virginia and Iowa conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, including a term of years as presiding elder of the Oakland, Maryland and

Huntington, West Virginia districts, residing at that tie in Huntington, where he died in February, 1918. He is buried in Spring Hill Cemetery by the side of his belo'd wife, who preceded him to the grave in October, 1910.

James S. Lakin received his education in Fairmont Ste Normal School, at Fairmont, West Virginia, and Op Wesleyan University, at Delaware, Ohio. While attend z the last named institution he met a young woman stud t named Lura Oliva Lakin, daughter of George W. Lab of Columbus, Ohio, who became his wife on November 1889. To them three children have been born, Jang Offutt, Marion Elizabeth and Florence Catherine. On ]. rember 21, 1921, James Offutt Lakin married Miss M. guerite Baker, of Morgantown, West Virginia, the daught of General and Mrs. George C. Baker of that city. M. guerite Baker Lakin graduated from Smith College, Nor ampton, Massachusetts, in 1921. Marion Elizabu graduated from the same college in 1922. James Offt graduated from West Virginia University in 1922, al Florence Catherine attends Charleston High School, fra which she expects to graduate in 1923.

For a number of years Mr. Lakin was engaged in 13 mercantile and timber business, with headquarters at Te Alta, West Virginia. He was president of the First P. tional Bank of Terra Alta and a director of the Teik Alta Bank. His interest and activity in politics and put: affairs have been of the most ardent nature. He was ! several terms a member of the Republican Executive Co- mittee of Preston County. In 1912 he was chairman of 1; Republican State Committee, and in 1920 he was elected delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chica and represented West Virginia there as a member of 1 "Big Four" delegation. In 1900 he was appointed Gov. Albert B. White as a director of the West Virgin Asylum at Huntington, West Virginia, and was reappoint in 1904 by Gov. W. M. Dawson. In 1905 he was a ca didate on the republican ticket for Congress in the Seco Congressional District of West Virginia, to succeed H. A. G. Dayton, who had been appointed to a federal judy ship, but was defeated by a very narrow margin by C. Thomas B. Davis of Keyser, West Virginia, a brother Hon. Henry G. Davis. His service as a member of t; board of directors of the West Virginia Asylum and 1; other business qualifications led Gov. W. E. Glasscc to appoint him in 1909 as one of the three members of i: newly created state board of control, which was to hal full charge of the business and financial affairs of all star educational institutions, now twelve in number, and t: complete control and management of all of West Virginia penal, charitable and correctional institutions, now fourtel in number. He has been a member of that board ever sin, having been reappointed in July, 1921 by Gov. E. Morgan for his third consecutive term. When the boa first organized on July 1, 1909, he was elected presiden, and has served in that executive capacity continuously, € cepting the four years of Gov. John J. Cornwell's a. ministration. The other members of the board we! Thomas E. Hodges, of Monongalia County, and John Sheppard of Mingo County. During the past thirteen yea the following men have served with him as members that board: Dr. E. B. Stephenson, of Kanawha Count Dr. J. M. Williamson, of Marshall County, William M. Dawson, of Kanawha County, A. Bliss MeCrum, of Prest County, J. Walter Barnes, of Marion County, and Jo Sherman Darst, of Kanawha County. In 1913 Gov. H. : Hatfield appointed Mr. Lakin a member of the Pub. Service Commission, of which he was elected chairman, bi it was held that he was ineligible because of a provision the law governing the State Board of Control. He w thereupon reappointed by the governor to the last nam board and reelected president. In addition to these duti he was appointed by Governor Cornwell during the Wor war as chairman of the State Committee on Proposed Co struction, and later as a member of the State Mental H giene Commission.

Mr. Lakin is identified with the activities of the Fir M. E. Church of Charleston. He is a thirty-second degr Scottish Rite Mason, a Knight Templar, a Noble of t'

James &,Jak

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Mystic Shrine, a member of Charleston Lodge, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and of the Knights of Pythiaa and of the Edgewood Country Club.

Immediately after the Spanish-American war Mr. Lakin was authorized, along with Dr. Buckner Fairfax Scott, by Gov. George Wesley Atkinson to organize Company M of the First West Virginia Infantry, National Guards.

W. E. E. KOEPLER of Bluefield, secretary of the Pocahon- tas Operators Association, has been actively associated since college days with the publicity end of the coal industry, mad formerly connected with the Black Diamond and the Coal Age. .

Mr. Koepler was born at St. Charles, Missouri, September 5, 1884, son of August and Aurelia (Heye) Koepler. Both the Koepler and Heye families came to this country from Germany in very carly times. These families were identified with the historic town of St. Charles, the first permanent cttlement west of the Missouri River. St. Charles is a village some miles above St. Louis, and was founded in a period when Missouri was owned by Spain and later by France, and was in the nature of a court town before the Louisiana Purchase. Mr. Koepler'a ancestor owned what was used as the first State House in St. Charles, a building ia which he Territorial Legislature assembled. It was in this old house that W. E. E. Koepler waa born, and since then the State of Missouri has made an appropriation to preserve the onilding. Mr. Koepler's ancestor also took up lands where ha Planters Hotel of St. Louis now stands. From St. Louis the family moved to St. Charles in 1820. August Koepler was for many years engaged in the industry of stove manufacturing.

W. E. E. Koepler acquired a good education in private schools and church schools, and was graduated in 1906 from Westminster College at Fulton, Missouri. In 1907 he be- :ame identified with the Black Diamond, the official trade journal of the western coal interests. He entered the advertising department and later became manager and astern editor. He waa associated with the Black Diamond intil 1913, when he joined the staff of the Colliery En- gineer, and when that was merged with the Coal Age he continued with the latter until 1916. In that year Mr. Koepler took charge of the financial and advertising de- partment of the Philadelphia Public Ledger.

Having gained a reputation for the thoroughness of his knowledge of mining machinery and equipment, and his 'undamental understanding of trade and economic con- litions in the coal industry, he was elected in May, 1918, secretary of the Pocahontas Operators Association, with headquarters at Bluefield, and bas since been one of the ictive men in the civic affairs of that community.

Mr. Koepler was a member of the National Production Committee, United States Fuel Administration, at Wash- ngton during the World war. He is a member of the Rotary Club, Bluefield Country Club, Phi Delta Theta college Fraternity and the Engineers Club of Philadelphia. He is ı Presbyterian.

December 19, 1914, at Philadelphia, Mr. Koepler mar- ied Miss Hazel Hamilton. Their two children are Letitia und Virginia.

ISAIAH BLE, M. D., a significant and highly useful life o himself, his family and to his home community and state vas that of the late Dr. Isaiah Bee of Princeton. He repre- ented the sturdy stock of West Virginia pioneers, being a grandson of Asa Bee, who fought as a soldier in the Revolutionary war, was a native of New Jersey, and in 1818 ettled in Preaton County, West Virginia. Doctor Bee was he great-grandson of two other Revolutionary soldiers.

Isaiah Bee was born September 22, 1832, at Salem, Harri- on County, West Virginia, in the house that had been the some of his ancestors for three generations. He was a son f Josiah and Priscilla (Davis) Bee. His father moved to Doddridge County in 1835, and died in Ritchie County in 890. He was a farmer. Priscilla Davis was a daughter of William Davis, who served as a member of the body guard f General Washington and endured many of the sufferings f the Revolutionary Army in the terrible winter of 1876-77.

Dr. Isaiah Bee was primarily educated in the common schools of Doddridge County, supplementing this with academic training at West Union and with two years at the Northwestern Academy at Clarksburg. He then entered upon the study of medicine with Dr. James M. Lathrop, a physician of Massachusetts, then residing at Ritchie Court llouse. . After two years of reading under Dr. Lathrop's supervision he attended medical lectures at Cleveland, Ohio, and in 1859 commenced his practice at Ritchie Court House. The Civil war soon after disturbed hia plan, and in June, 1861, he enlisted for service in Company C, Thirty-first Regiment of Infantry, C. S. A., and served as a private until September 3, 1862, then was commissioned assistant surgeon of the regiment, acting in this capacity until Febru- ary 7, 1863, when he was made surgeon, and he was assigned to Jenkin's cavalry brigade until the close of the war. He served with distinction in the difficult positiona assigned him, and, though slightly wounded upon several occasions, he returned home in comparatively good health. On July 4, 1865, Dr. Bee located in Princeton, West Virginia, where he was in continuoua practice until 1904, gaining the con- fidence of the public and the cordial friendship of a large circle of friends. His first public service after the war was when he was elected in October, 1871, from the then sen- atorial district comprising Mercer, McDowell, Wyoming, Logan, Lincoln, Cabell, Wayne and Boone counties, as a member of the Constitutional Convention which met in 1872 and passed the present West Virginia constitution. At this election Doctor Bee received every vote that was cast in Mercer County, which was his own county, and in Wyoming and McDowell counties. But few of the sixty-five members of this famous convention still survive. In 1880 he was elected as a democratic member of the House of Delegates from Mercer County, and served four years continually, and again from 1898 to 1900. He was a member of the State Board of Health in 1881. He was director of the State Penitentiary at Moundsville, regent of the State University from 1872 to 1877, and was probably better acquainted throughout the state than any other professional man. He owned several farms in Mercer County, one consisting of 400 acres of the original tract owned by the pioneer, Capt. William Smith. The family home is a beautiful regi- dence in the suburbs of Princeton, West Virginia. Few citizens of Princeton enjoyed more fully the respect and esteem of the community than did Doctor Bee, who retired from active practice in 1904. He married Mary (Smith) Lacey, of Fauquier County, Virginia, who died January 6, 1907. Their one son, Dr. Isaiah E. Bee, resided with his father until the death of the former November 15, 1912.

ISAIAH ERNEST BEE, M. D., for many years carried ex- ceptionally heavy burdena and obligations as a physician and surgeon, more particularly as a surgeon, at Princeton, where his professional work was in a measure a continua- tion and supplement to the career of his honored father, Dr. Isaiah Bee, whose record is also given in this publication. Dr. Isaiah E. Bee was finally compelled to give up the strenuous work of an active physician, though he is still a consultant, and has found various important interests to engage his time and attention.

He was born at Princeton Angust 23, 1867, attended the common schools of his native city, also had private in- struction for five years, two years in the State Normal College at Athens and a year in Princeton Academy. He finished his literary education by two and a half yeara in West Virginia University, and in 1888 entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore, where he was graduated in 1890. Doctor Bee at once returned to Prince- ton, took up practice with his father, and in 1892 Dr. John C. Hughes became associated with them, the firm being Bee, Bee & Hughes for ten years. After 1902 the Doctors Bee continued as partnera for two years, when the elder mem- ber of the firm retired and for about four years Dr. Isaiah E. Bee lived in the West. On returning to West Virginia he became surgeon and physician for the Virginia Railway, and this official duty, together with general practice, was maintained for three years. Ill health then made it neces-

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sary for him to give up his active practice, and since then he has kept in touch with the profession largely as a con- sulting physician and surgeon.

During Cleveland's second administration Doctor Bee was commissioner of the Pension Bureau at Washington, from 1893 to 1897. He also served seven years as county physician, from 1894 to 1900. He is a member of the Mercer County, West Virginia State and American Medical Associations and the American College of Surgeons. He was a delegate to the American Tuberculosis Congress that met at Pittsburgh in 1919. He is recognized by his brothers in the profession as one of the leaders in point of ability and influence.

For many years Doctor Bee has devoted a great deal of time to the promotion of Sunday School interests in West Virginia, in association with the Missionary Baptist Church, of which he is a member. For seventeen years he has taught a large adult Bible class, and practically every week he responds to an invitation to visit and deliver ad- dresses before Sunday Schools and Sunday School organiza- tions. While his career has been in the nature of a public service, he has responded to special interests outside his main subject. In 1890 he organized a military company at Princeton and Bluefield, known as Company A., Second Regiment, West Virginia National Guard, and served as its captain from 1890 to 1895. Doctor Bee is a reader of the best literature and has long been a student of West Vir- ginia history and is well informed as to the sources of his- tory, particularly in his section of the state.

December 23, 1900, Doctor Bee married Kathleen Pendle- ton Nelms, of Morristown, Tennessee, daughter of John H. and Letitia Virginia (Pendleton) Nelms, the former a native of Tennessee and the latter of Virginia. Mrs. Bee is an accomplished musician and a graduate of Sullins College of Bristol, Tennessee. Doctor and Mrs. Bee have an adopted boy, Zed B. Campbell, now seven years of age.

REV. WILBERT M. BURKE is the popular pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church at Bluefield. He is one of the younger priests of the Catholic Church in West Virginia.

Father Burke is a native of West Virginia, born at Wheeling May 8, 1892, son of John Joseph and Margaret (Callahan) Burke. He was educated in St. Charles College, completing his studies there in 1910. He took his theo- logical course in St. Mary's Seminary and was ordained by Bishop Donahue at Wheeling in 1915.

Since his ordination as a priest Father Burke has put in six busy years, three years in missionary work and two years as assistant to Father McBride at Parkersburg. On January 1, 1921, he began his duties as pastor of the Sacred Heart Church at Bluefield. Father Burke is a very demo- cratic young man and has all the qualities that fit him for leadership among the people of this section. He was athletic as a youth and college man, still plays baseball and keeps in touch with all the recreational as well as the serious activities of his people. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Kiwanis Club.

The history of the Catholic Church in Bluefield is repre- sented by an upward climb. Before the establishment of the parish in 1892 the wants of the few scattered Catholics was attended to by Father McBride of Wytheville, who had a mission at this place. In 1892 Bluefield was given a permanent parish, with the late Father Oliver, a French priest, in charge. The church that is being used at present was built with the rectory. The church while looked upon as well appointed has long since failed to keep pace with the growth of the city and the building of the new edifice comes as a matter of stern necessity.

Father Oliver's work in this section hardly needs to be referred to in these lines, as it is well and favorably known to the people of this section irrespective of creed, his many good works not being confined to his own flock. On Novem- ber 15, 1920, Father Oliver passed to his reward, and the sentiment expressed on all sides gave evidence of the high esteem in which he was held.

Shortly after the death of Father Oliver, Bishop Donahue placed Father W. M. Burke in charge of the Bluefield parish. Father Burke took up the responsibilities of the

parish with a vim, and his capacity for hard work and th results of the efforts of this young priest soon earned fo him the admiration and confidence of the community with out regard to religious affiliations.

To Father Burke has been entrusted the work of raisin: funds for the erection of the new building, and the result he attained in this direction have been very encouraging.

The establishing of a parochial school has been unde consideration for some time and its location in close proz imity to the new church building is a matter that will b given immediate attention so that students will be enrolle for the fall term commencing September, 1922.

ELMER ELSWORTH HOOD. The work of a newspaper ma is in an important sense a public service, and howeve devoted to his profession he may be he finds himself soone or later an official or semi-official participant in civic an political affairs. Elmer Elsworth Hood is one of the vetera editors and publishers of West Virginia, and it would b difficult to define any distinct boundary between his busi ness and his public career.

While so much of his life has been spent in West Vir ginia, he is a native of Ohio, and was born at Piketon i Pike County, May 11, 1862. His father, George Washing ton Hood, was born in Pennsylvania, was a blacksmith b trade and died at Piketon, Ohio, about 1875. He married Mary Williams, daughter of a Virginia family living aroun Harpers Ferry. George W. Hood and wife had the fo! lowing children: Emma, who married Oscar Kent and live at Waverly, Ohio; Charles V., of Portsmouth, Ohio; an Elmer Elsworth.

Elmer Elsworth Hood spent his boyhood in Pike County secured a common school education, and had his first ir troduction to the mysteries and arts of the newspaper craf at the age of fifteen, when he accepted the opportunity o becoming the first "devil" of the Piketon Courier. Th five years he spent with that journal gave him every oppor tunity of apprenticeship, from type-setter to editor. Hi next work was on the Circleville Herald, owned and edite by Miss Lillie C. Darst, then the only woman editor in th State of Ohio. In 1885 Mr. Hood went to Ironton, Ohio and was editor of the Ironton Republican until he left tha state and moved over into West Virginia.

This was in 1889, and his first achievement was foundin the Huntington Herald, a weekly paper whose consecutiv history is now a part in the Huntington Herald Dispatel Mr. Hood sold his interest in the Herald in 1894, and the for a period of fifteen years was at Charleston as managin editor of the Charleston Mail, a daily paper. While he wa at Charleston the work of several civil positions compete for the time he could give from his newspaper duties. Whe he left Charleston in 1910 Mr. Hood became editor of th Fayette Journal at Fayetteville. This is one of the oldes republican papers in the state, established in 1876 and sti continued under the old name and the same brand o politics.

On April 1, 1915, Mr. Hood moved to Keyser, havin purchased a half interest in the Echo Company and becam editor and general manager of the Mountain Echo, one o the best and most influential weekly newspapers publishe in the eastern part of the state. The Echo is the oldest re publican paper in the Eastern Panhandle. It was estal lished by the late J. O. Thompson, a well known newspape man, in 1868. It has been issued weekly for over half century. The paper was taken over by the Echo Compan several years later, a moving spirit in the organization bein the late Senator O. A. Hood. Elmer E. Hood continued hi active duties as editor, president and general manager o the Echo Company until August, 1921, when he resigne" his duties as editor to become postmaster, but he still hold the controlling interest in the publishing company and i its president.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 171

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